Dystopia
by Rizzle
Summary: Kidnapped and expecting to be abandoned to his fate, Draco Malfoy writes a personal account of life, love and loss after the end of the Second War. His story encompasses two unforgivable acts, a wedding, a divorce, a kidnapping and maybe a rescue.
1. Chapter 1

**WRITTEN FOR DMHG FIC EXCHANGE 2009, for RIPTEY**

**Title:** Dystopia  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Disclaimer:** I am not JK Rowling and no money is being made from this story.  
**Warnings:** There is a dub-con/non-con-ish type scene that may offend some readers.  
**Summary:** Kidnapped and expecting to be abandoned to his fate, Draco Malfoy writes a personal account of recent life, love and loss after the end of the Second Wizarding War. His story encompasses two unforgivable acts, a wedding, a divorce, a kidnapping and maybe, just maybe...a rescue.  
**Notes:** As per the recipient's request, this story is DH-compliant, except for the DH epilogue. You will not find any mention of receding hairlines (not that there is anything wrong with a receding hairline). The scenes are presented in **reverse, chronological order **(i.e. we are moving backwards in time). Draco is not particularly nice, nor is he especially evil. And I know I'm crazy to attempt first _and_ second person POVs, present _and_ past tense, all laid out in a backwards story. But if you can't be adventurous in an anonymous exchange, then bah! :)  
**Note to Riptey:** I was pleased to receive your request because I really liked 'Touch and Go', which ended up inspiring this piece. However, I think 'Dystopia' is a bit darker than the NYE reunion-type fic you asked for. If so, I apologise. I tried to include all the key elements. The Steve Zissou quote is inspired and perfect for D/Hr. It's in there, as is the break-up, the NYE moment, the not-so-nice Draco and the absence of Dramione kids. There is one child in the story and despite it not being epilogue-compliant, I've still called him 'James' (as he is known in the DH epilogue). I do hope you like this. I had an absolute blast writing it!

**RIPTEY'S REQUEST DETAILS**  
**You are creating a gift for:** Riptey.  
**Would you prefer an art or fic gift?:** fic  
**Song, Poem, or Quote (title/original creator) (optional):**_"You know I'm not good at apologizing, so I'll just skip it if it's all the same to you."_ - Steve Zissou, 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou'.  
**Describe your ideal gift in as few words/keywords as possible (plus rating):** Post-Hogwarts, canon-compliant except epilogue. I'd like to see Draco and Hermione who had a relationship and broke up but are still in love with each other, and they encounter one another somehow on New Year's Eve and either spend one last night together or get back together. The quote can apply to either of them.  
**Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's):** current other pairings for either Draco or Hermione (mentions of the past are fine), Draco being really nice, either of them having children.

_P.S - Do check out Riptey's fics, if you haven't already. She is a wonderful writer._

_Dystopia is currently nominated for L2-Best Short Story AND G3-Best Angst AND G9-Most Creative AND C2-Best Draco in the current round of Dramione Awards. _

**_Dystopia_**

_**Prologue - December 30th, 2009**_

My name is Draco Lucius Abraxus Malfoy. I am twenty-nine, divorced, and up until four months ago, I was a Divisional Director at Gringotts. I am my mother's weakness and my father's regret. I am a Galleon-managing machine, surrounded by other people's wealth and a history that isolates me.

Gold is cold. The goblins at Gringotts know this well. They have a word for the climate in the vaults - _dorranbrek_. Loosely, it means 'cold comfort'. That's what gold is. You can horde it zealously, but in troubled times you can't eat it. You can't drink it. You can't use it to fuel a fire. Hold it close to your skin for a moment and it will carry the heat of your body, but it cannot _keep_ you warm. Gold is nothing but a pile of pretty metal unless there is someone to admire it, wear it, to make a gift out of it, to assign it value and meaning.

Gold is going to save me, apparently.

The ridiculous ransom they are asking for is ten times my weight in gold. I suspect some serious miscalculation as to the current state of the Malfoy fortunes is responsible for this. It's also quite funny really, because if my _weight_ is their chosen unit of measure, then you'd think they'd be feeding me very well in here. But they're not. I'm starving, and I don't mean that figuratively. I am malnourished to the point where the simple act of walking around the confines of my small cell leaves me breathless and dizzy. Ten times my rapidly depleting mass is not going to be very much, when all is said and done.

They've taken me out of this room a few times to throw a bucket of water over me. The first time I was ill and did not recall much except that I was freezing. My teeth were chattering so badly I ended up painfully biting my bottom lip, while every joint in my body _ached_. They thought I was going to die from fever. For a time, so did I. Maybe the water did the trick. I don't know.

The last time I was given an impromptu dousing was last week and I was as lucid as I am now. Lucid enough that they didn't see me snatch up a roll of parchment and a quill-pen from a table and hide it under my damp shirt as they were kick-shoving me back to my cell. I didn't know what I was going to do with these items until I found a loose stone under my cell's small, iron-barred window.

Here was a place to hide my scroll.

And then the idea came to me.

I would write. What, I didn't know. But when I put nib to parchment, the words tumbled over each other, jostling to be scribbled into permanence. I am a good enough conversationalist and a passable orator when the need arises, but I am not the type to keep a diary. I'm reticent to discuss my feelings at the best of times, even with Hermione and especially not with myself.

But with nothing to lose and the expectation that with each passing day of zero ransom paid, I will soon be killed, I lose myself in this recording. It is disjointed, but that's fine because I know what _I_ mean.

I write of recent events only, because I am not so morbid as to reminisce about my highly eventful schooling days at Hogwarts. Let's not rehash _quite_ that far back, thank you.

It's about ten in the evening now, I think. There's a clock upstairs that chimes the time. It's got to the stage that I actually get a little excited when the hour changes. I try and count the chiming, but sometimes I miss a ding or a dong and then I am fucking _inconsolable_ because I have to wait another sixty hellish minutes to get it right the next time.

Hermione once told me she suspected I have a minor case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as the Muggles call it. Not the kind that interferes with my life too much, thankfully. She used to say it was cute. My disorder was apparently endearing to her. I would only believe this from someone who is friends with Ronald Weasley, whom I've always felt is a 'disorder' all on his own.

There's not much to look forward to in this place. When I am not writing, I count everything; the dripping water when the blocked gutters fill up with rain, the seconds after lightning and before thunder. I count footsteps. I count the collection of cuts on my body. I count the length of time I can hold my breath before dark, fuzzy shapes bloom behind my eyelids.

It's dark. The only light I have is the lantern-light that spills under the bottom of my door and whatever light the moon offers when she's in the mood.

The door is unlocking. Metal slides out of oiled bolts. This is familiar and terrifying. I scramble to my feet and hurry to hide the parchment and quill behind the loose stone.

I curse the fact that I had no time to prepare myself properly for their return; no time to steel myself against the pain they inflict. I am unable to collect what's left of my wits. Actually, this isn't true. I've had nothing _but_ time locked away on my own all these months in this little room. But time is funny like that. Happy thoughts take less time to think them. Fearful thoughts make time slow down to a standstill.

The largest of the three kidnappers enters the room. I know he's called Fitz, even though the three of them studiously avoid referring to each other by their given names. I've been here long enough and they've slipped up once or twice. Fitz likes knives, even though his fists are the size of tea kettles and he could drip my brain out through my ears after a quick punch to the head. Thankfully for me, he has not brought his collection of blades to practice on me today.

"Brought you a present, Malfoy," he chuckles darkly.

_Food! Is it food? Please be food. _

He throws a long, cloak-bundled thing at my feet. The bundle groans.

Ok, _not_ food.

"Enjoy," Fitz grunts. He is foul, lewd and worryingly happy. "While you can."

I peel back the cloak to see what they have brought me, even though I already _know_, and my heart has exploded, re-formed, withered from grief and pulsed back to life again in my chest. I know that cloak; I _know_ that hair, I know, well enough, the feel of the unfailingly soft skin of her cheek as I push back the hood.

Since being here, I have tried not to think about Hermione. Thinking of her is like thinking of a big, juicy steak. It _hurts_. The hunger in my belly is like a big clawing vacuum, making me writhe on the ground in agony on some days. The hurt in my chest has nothing to do with this, but it's a type of hunger. Your eyes can actually starve for the sight of your loved ones.

"Hi," Hermione eventually says, sitting up. She rubs at her forehead where I can see a bruise forming. Her expression tells me that a lengthy explanation as to why she is here in my cell is imminent, but for now, she is soaking me up with her eyes.

I can't even mutter the most inane question. I am _stunned_. Maybe Fitz did end up hitting me on the head because I must be brain-damaged to actually believe I am looking at her.

"Hello," I tentatively croak back, my parched throat unaccustomed to speaking. I'm worried that the slightest sound or movement from me is going to burst this bubble. I count the seconds, thinking she's going to disappear before I reach ten.

_Six, seven..._

"I've got a loaf of bread and some cured ham down my pants."

This is not something you hear every day, but I am too far gone to care about logic or reality. I just nod.

She stands, a little shakily because they've obviously knocked her about a bit, reaches down her baggy trousers and pulls out a small, tightly wrapped bundle. It's roughly the size of a fist. She places it in her palm, concentrates and then gently blows over it. The cloth bundle unfurls and expands such that she is now using two hands to hold the previously tiny parcel. I behold a loaf of fresh bread and a hunk of pork wrapped in clear plastic. The food smells like heaven dipped in chocolate, deep fried in beer batter.

But as hungry as I am, all I can do is stare at her.

She wraps the food back up in the cloth and quickly stashes it in a dark corner near the door, where the guards will not see it. What follows is a moist blur.

"I'm sorry I took so long," she says.

I am weak, but I manage to remain standing when she hurls herself into my arms. She plants kisses over my face, touches every part of me she can reach and then grabs me by the shoulders to shake me. All the while, my arms remain woodenly by my side.

"For God's sake, why won't you hold me?"

I blink. She did make me promise month ago, after all. "I can touch you again?" I croak.

She's crying and laughing. "Yes, sweetheart, _you can touch me again_."

I lead us both to the pile of dirty blankets in the corner of the room. We hold each other as she sobs into my neck. The last time I cried was at the Battle of Hogwarts and I swore I would never do so again.

Not like it's the first vow I've broken. I hold her to me so hard I know it's hurting her, as I squeeze out tears into her hair.

**

Hermione decided that she had cried enough. Indeed, she'd soaked the front of Draco's ragged shirt. She came here for a very specific reason and blubbering all over him was not it.

He slept.

She took her time gently cataloguing his injuries, and in doing so, had to suppress another wave of tears. He was filthy, gaunt, bruised and beaten. She watched the rise and fall of his chest for a few minutes, letting the sight of him calm her anger. When he awakened later, she determined she would try and get some of food into him. Hopefully without most of it coming back up.

Her training took over. She began to inspect every inch of the cell, even though she knew Draco would have escaped weeks ago had he found the breach or the weakness she was currently looking for. A quick press of her ear to the door told her that the guards were a long way away. It was late and they'd had an eventful day, by all accounts.

Hermione's inspection of the cell led her to the window, with its taunting view of a picturesque night-drenched outdoors that Draco had no hope of accessing. A sliver of white against the dark grey stone wall directly below the window caught her eye. She got down to her knees and inspected the spot, surprised to see that the whiteness was from the tip of a quill-pen that had been stashed behind a loose slab of rock. Hermione reached inside and found a grubby roll of parchment.

She unfurled it and frowned at what she saw.

Draco's handwriting had never been this frantic, or uneven. It was testament to his deteriorating physical and mental state that he wrote like he was trying to flee from each sentence that came before. What she was looking at was a collection of memories and disjointed observations from their recent past.

She wouldn't be able to sleep for a while yet, anyway. Hermione angled the parchment towards the window to catch the maximum amount of moonlight and feeling only slightly guilty, began to read.


	2. Chapter 2

******

_**You never feel alone when you walk into a bookshop. Why is that? If you take me to one, prepare to lose me for half a day.**_

**_**_**

I was being followed. I wasn't sure about it until I purposely detoured into Flourish & Blotts and took a sudden, unexpected interest in picture books from the children's section at the far end of the shop.

I suppose I could have walked into any of the many establishments on the street, but it had to be the bookstore. As a small child, this was the place my mother would tell me to go to if I was ever separated from her in Diagon Alley. Narcissa would say that while there was arguable a lot of bad in the world, for some reason it never followed you into a bookstore. I remember trusting her implicitly regarding this and wondered if the bad simply waited for you outside.

Having flipped open a large, colourful book about a talking cauldron with a penchant for gobbling up shoes, I peered at my stalker.

He stood over by the magazines stand, having picked up a copy of Witch Weekly. I felt a small, twisting knot form in my stomach when I saw Hermione on the cover. She was part of a group picture taken at the Wizarding Merchant's Ball held at my parents' home last week.

Obviously the photo was taken before what happened in the gardens.

That morning, I opened my closet door and caught a whiff of the gardenias that had littered the ground where we had lain. The scent clung to the formal robes I'd worn that night. I was yet to have them laundered and so they still hung from a hook inside the door. The scent triggered a profound physical reaction. Remorse feels a lot like grief, but it's not blameless grief. It's the other, guilty kind.

My mind was elsewhere from the moment I left my house that morning. I should have been paying attention. The signs were all there, but the scent of those damnable flowers distracted me.

He was an average-sized fellow, with the kind of man-in-the-street looks that don't encourage second glances. I've experienced my share of the curious, the insane, the rude, admirers and people who mean me harm, but this man's agenda was a mystery at the time. He seemed content to follow at a comfortable distance and nothing more.

A gawker, I thought. Unpleasant yes, but he wasn't breaking any laws.

"Mr. Copperbottom," said a little voice accompanied by a gentle tug at my trousers, just under the knee.

I glanced down at a small black-haired boy, about three or four years old. He was carrying an armload of books similar to the one I was holding and he was eyeing _my_ copy with a proprietorial air.

"Gimme please? Mr. Copperbottom!" He pointed to the book.

I handed it to him and then wondered why his chubby little hand was still attached to my trousers. I stepped back and was dismayed when he did not immediately dislodge. His mother materialised, as mothers are wont to do when their children bother people in shops, and began a grinning apology.

That was, until she recognised me.

I've met her son before, though young James was only a few months old at the time and his mother had been in good enough spirits to smile at me. Not so on this occasion. I watched as James Potter flopped cross-legged, on the ground behind her and flicked through his copy of 'The Adventures of Mr. Copperbottom'.

"Oh, it's _you_." Ginny Weasley said 'you' in the manner you or I might say, 'incurable venereal disease'.

"Hello Weasley." I inclined my head to her enormous stomach. "I see congratulations are in order on the imminent addition to your family." I regretted my tone as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I have this way of making even the most inane conversation sound scathing. I don't bloody know why I do it. I just _do_.

"You have some nerve showing your face here," she hissed. Her eyes darted around the store, narrowing when she spotted the manager watching us. She needn't have bothered. It was the middle of a weekday and there was hardly anyone else around besides him.

"The last time I checked," I spoke to her, calmly, "Flourish and Blotts was open to the public."

"Well they should make an exception for people like you. What you did to Hermione was...was...it was bloody unforgiveable! And before you start off thinking she told anyone, she _didn't_. My brother complained that she left the Ball without telling him and when I visited her the next day to find out why, I _saw_ what was left of her dress! A quiet cup of tea was all it took and she was bawling all over me. How could you, Malfoy? Haven't you done enough?"

I knew this was coming, though I expected violent reprisal from Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter, not an impassioned lecture from a heavily pregnant Ginny. In her fury, her large abdomen butted into me. She took a hasty step backwards. Unfortunately, he son was in the way and she tripped over him, bumping into a nearby bookshelf. I darted forward to steady both her and the heavy bookcase before it fell over the boy. Blushing scarlet, she straightened up and slapped my hands off of her.

"Are you alright?" I asked, coolly.

With a glare, she opened her mouth, shut it, slapped two hands over her son's ears and said, "Drop dead, Malfoy."

The boy wriggled from her grasp and held open his book to her. "Mummy! Look! Mr. Copperbottom eated a Kidditch shoe!"

"If I never see you again, it will be too soon," Ginny seethed at me. "And if you so much as send Hermione an Owl, I'll know about it and you'll sorely wish you hadn't. Come along James, we're going to pay for our purchases."

"Can I have all of them?" he asked, clutching his stack of books protectively.

"No, just the one, darling."

There was a skerrick of a quiver of his lower lip, but the water pipes held fast and there were no tears. He was mature for his age, was young James. If this was me at age four, I'd have thrown a tantrum to bring the roof down and gone home with all the books _and_ an ice-cream from Florean Fortescue's, for good measure.

I smiled at him. It was hard not to. "Goodbye James. It was good to have met you again."

Ginny scowled at me for deigning to speak to her son. The boy didn't understand why his mother was so furious, but he knew to take her cue.

"Bye," he said solemnly, waggling his little fingers.

I watched them until they carried their brown paper-wrapped packages out the door. And then, for a moment, I stood there wondering why I was at Flourish and Blotts in the first place.

_Ah, that's right. _

I turned my attention back to the magazine stand and noted, without surprise, that the man had gone. I wondered if it was all in my imagination. My assistant, Philomena, had remarked on more than one occasion that my focus on the job had been wavering since... Had it really been a year since the divorce?

Maybe I was overestimating my own self-importance in thinking that anyone would want to follow me?

I left the store, walking briskly along the street. Gringotts loomed ahead, grey and sombre. As I approached the familiar gold-plated doors of the bank, I spotted the man again.

He walked some distance ahead of me, at a strolling pace, with his hands in his pockets. I watched as he turned a corner into an alley. My lunch hour was up and I had a meeting scheduled, but curiosity got the better of me as it has done many times in the past.

I never learn.

I followed him (with what I perceived to be stealth) halfway down the alley. Whereupon he stopped, spun around and smirked at me.

"Mr. Renthrow sends his regards," said the man, as his associates melted out of the walls, quite literally.

I could have kicked myself, but as it happens, they saved me the trouble.

My wand was already out, because I am neither foolish nor inexperienced. Still, eight-to-one are never favourable odds. I found myself using spells I never thought I'd have to speak again and to my great consternation, not all of them seem to work. Not the darker spells, at any rate.

Of _all_ the things in the world that an honest living has done to me, _this_ had to be it? I could have grown thick around the middle, developed jowlage or watched my hair recede steadily away from my reflection. But no, I had lost the potency of my dark magic instead. I know for a fact my father's curses and hexes have the same bite today as they did twelve years ago.

In the end, a well-aimed hex brought me to the ground. After that, it was all a matter of how many kicks to the head it takes to render someone unconscious. When all is said and done, I am a numbers man.

I counted six kicks before the lights winked out.

_******_

_**My paternal grandmother's legacy at Malfoy Manor is to be found in the gardens. Flowers of exquisite scent and hue. Crush one in your hand and the perfume will linger for hours.**_

**

"You're drunk," my father said in disgust.

We were at the annual Merchant's Ball, hosted that year by Lucius at Malfoy Manor. I didn't live there anymore. Not since I was eighteen. Accordingly, I felt as much a guest as anyone else.

"Lucius, leave him be."

"He's sotted, Narcissa! Just look at him. Are you _trying_ to embarrass us?"

I was swilling cognac from a champagne flute. This was the height of uncouthness and it was enough to give me mother palpitations already. My father's question made me pause, mid-sip, as I raised an eyebrow at him. I admit it was slightly amusing when he raised one right back. I inherited this particular mannerism from him, after all.

"I doubt I could shame this family any more than you already have."

Lucius sucked in a shocked, sharp breath, while my mother paled. The entire evening had been building up to this heated moment. "You ungrateful wretch," he hissed. "How dare you?"

I further baited his fury with a derisive laugh. "How do I dare? I don't understand how any of us dare to show our faces in polite society. How can you bear it?" I asked him. "Can't you see how people _look_ at us? We're pariahs." To elaborate, I held my glass up in a toast to the first person I recognised.

Unfortunately for Neville Longbottom, this was him.

"Hullo Longbottom! Pleasant evening, innit?"

At first, he looked alarmed. Not surprisingly, as I haven't said a word to him in over a decade. And then he scowled and turned away to resume his conversation with another guest. I directed a bitter, pointed smirk at my father.

Lucius took a step forward, invading my personal space with his simmering anger. I'm a tall man, but my father is half a head taller and intimidating at the best of times. "You will cease this unseemly behaviour at once. We are here to promote our business enterprises, not for you to engage in a childish, pointless tantrum!"

"_Your_ business ventures, father. Not mine." I emptied my glass, my fifth or sixth already, swirling the burning alcohol around my mouth for a moment. It's a wonder how anything that stings that much on the way down can actually dull all your other pains. "Unlike you, I have a _real_ job. I work for a living."

Things might have gone badly for me had a waiter not interrupted us. I ignored his offer of a canapé and instead snatched a crystal decanter of brandy from his silver tray. My father's hand clamped down on my forearm before I could refill my glass.

"You have had enough."

In response to this, I stared across the ballroom as my ex-wife talked to Ronald Weasley. That halfwit had always been a close talker. Probably due to the fact that he grew up in shoebox with siblings shoved into every spare corner. He loomed over Hermione, taking any opportunity to stare down her deep cleavage. I couldn't blame him, really. She was dressed like a Knockturn Alley streetwalker. I wondered what they were saying. She seemed serious and earnest. He looked like he was trying to pay attention, but I could see his wandering gaze drifting about the room. When he wasn't looking at her chest, that was.

"Not nearly enough," I muttered to my father and resumed topping up my glass.

I wanted to hurt that undeserving, befuddled looking moron. I wanted to wrap my hands around his pale, freckled throat and _squeeze_. Most of what he had in his life, he'd come to by accident of birth. Or just by regular, old accident. Weasley, with his lack of personality. Sure, it's easy to get along with everyone when you're as dull as a concrete pillar. Concrete pillars are not in the habit of offending people, are they? They're just _there_. They're scenery. Boring ought not to be confused with amiability. Hermione deserved to be challenged. Her intellect demanded it.

My mother attached a thin, pale hand to my sleeve. "Draco, just leave it be. Honestly, I didn't think the girl would even attend. She's made it clear she doesn't wish to speak to you and if you insist on forcing the issue, there will be a scene."

A scene! Oh, Merlin forbid I would make one of _those_. I was only a former Death Eater and a son of one of the most notorious Voldemort supporters. I only indirectly killed Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape and then later engaged in a near-fatal battle against my own classmates wherein one of my best friends fucking roasted to death.

But yes, let us not make a scene and draw unwanted attention to ourselves.

"_She_ has a name, Mother."

"And it's not 'Malfoy' anymore. That's what this is about, isn't it, boy?" my father challenged.

I was twenty-seven years old and he called me 'boy'. My wages supported the family. I'd ceded the Manor to my parents in favour of a townhouse in London. 'Boy', he called me.

My heart rate picked up when I noticed that Ronald Bodice-Gazer Weasley had walked off to speak with some fat paper-pusher from the Ministry. Hermione was left on her own. It wouldn't have been for very long. She's well loved and would be drawn into conversation soon enough by someone else.

I decided to make my move.

"Excuse me," I said, as I handed my mother my glass.

As my father so tactfully pointed out, I was hideously drunk. It seemed a miracle that I was able to walk without falling over. One foot in front of the other, I told myself. There we go.

Oh, good. She noticed I existed. It was amazing how, in such short order, I managed to completely erase the relaxed look from her face. What the hell did she think was going to happen? She decided to come to an event organised by _my_ parents. Of course she knew I'd be there. Hell, she _wanted_ this.

"Hello Draco," she said, stiffly. "How are you?" She couldn't even look at me. Had we really been married less than six months ago?

"I want to talk to you," I blurted.

Some blue-haired biddy called to her from across the ballroom and she sent the woman a small smile and wave. Hermione may have seemed nervous, but her tone was steely when she next spoke. "Aren't you already?"

"In private," I added.

"I don't think that's wise."

"It's probably not," I allowed. "But I'd like to, all the same. Please?"

Her expression softened, though only for a second. I knew I stank like a brewery. "Exactly how much have you had to drink?"

"Not nearly enough to disregard the fact that you're dressed like a trollop. Did our divorce settlement leave you that much out of pocket that you only wear half as much clothing as before?" My gaze lingered on the gentle swell of her breasts in her white silk, empire line gown. "I might have been persuaded to hand over a few galleons for you to cover yourself up."

This was terrible. I could _hear_ the words coming out of my mouth, and part of me couldn't believe I was saying them. The other part of me, the part that wanted to club Weasley over the head with his own arm, egged me on.

Hermione didn't look cheap. She couldn't look cheap if she was dressed in Muggle dollar bills, stapled together. She looked _beautiful_ that evening and I have always regretted that I never once gave her a compliment along these lines. To me, compliments and endearments are like tattoos. If I give you one, I can't ask for it back.

She turned a deep shade of red. I should have felt wretched that I caused her to feel self-conscious due to my jealousy-fuelled tirade. But I didn't. I _liked_ that she was hurting.

"You are unbelievable."

I sensed an imminent storm off, so I figured I would go out in a blaze of incorrigible glory. "You're letting him touch you, aren't you?"

"_What_?"

"I'm talking about Weasley. You're dripping off his arm at a function at my bloody parents' house. The two of you certainly didn't waste time picking up where you left off, did you? Or maybe he wasn't patient at all?" I leaned in, doing a much better job of looking down her décolletage than Weasley had done. "I did work late quite often, if I recall correctly."

I was being a wanker. I knew the hole I was digging was rapidly turning into a crevasse, but I couldn't seem to stop myself. For a moment, I thought she would slap me. But we weren't children any more, even if I was acting like it. After taking a few deep breaths to calm down, she addressed me with clipped iciness.

"You're not yourself this evening," she told me. "And you're obviously stinking drunk, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you _didn't_ mean to say what you just did. I don't think _you_, of all people, have any right to accuse me of infidelity."

My mouth turned down in a scowl. I wanted a Time Turner. I wanted to go back and whiten out parts of that dark day. I wanted to reach into her head and Obliviate that damning memory; the one that made her stop loving me. I could have told her all of this, but I had argument-tunnel vision. In the distance, at the end of this race in which everyone loses, was Ronald Weasley's smug face, holding up a sign that says, "HAH!"

"Are you seeing Weasley or not?" I demanded, because I have never been one to let sleeping dogs lie.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "There's nothing going on between Ron and me! I'm here to accompany him in an official capacity. Ask Harry if you don't believe me. And even if there was something going on, it wouldn't be any of your business, would it? Not anymore."

The storm-off moment eventuated and I marvelled that she had put up with my behaviour for that long. She turned on her heel, but I caught her arm, stopping her.

"Wait."

"Don't," she said. The inside of her elbow was warm and soft in my hand. "I don't deserve this."

I slid my hand down to catch hers and then I tugged her along with me before she could protest. We escaped the elegant, gold-spangled ballroom, just like we escaped another ballroom on the night of our wedding reception. I wondered if she was thinking about that time too.

I know my former home very well, obviously. I took us through dimly lit corridors where we were not likely to bump into any canoodling guests. We took a side entrance out into the gardens and suddenly--belatedly and foolishly--I realised we were alone.

It was summer. The breeze changed direction at the right moment and we were enveloped by the scent of star jasmine that was smothering a long, brick wall. A mellower, warm and sugary scent rose from the four-hundred year old black honeysuckle hedges that skirted the Manor. We continued through a chequer-board flowering herb garden, brushing past rare, flowering lime myrtle, lemon basil and four types of lavender.

I pulled her under the darkness of a low-canopied tree in the middle of a small courtyard of gardenia bushes. I used to hide here from my nurse when I misbehaved and was due for a scolding. Those gleeful childish memories were at complete odds with our nervous tension that evening. But the scent was exactly as I remembered it from my childhood.

"This is insane," she moaned.

I agreed as I ran my hands from her waist, up to her arms, under her heavy, artfully coiled hair. I cupped the back of her head, tilting her mouth up to mine. "I could have ripped Weasley limb from limb for just looking at you tonight."

She pulled away slightly to give me a dry look. "More like you would have paid someone else to rip him limb from limb."

I chuckled. Merlin, how this woman knew me. I think she knew me from the moment we met at school. Everyone else saw the image and the reputation. Hermione saw the small, insecure little boy who had never dealt well with the weight of his family's name. In many ways, I am still that boy.

I kissed her. Her gentle shudder passed through me, seeming to settle low in my belly and then concentrating lower still. I rubbed my pelvis against her and was rewarded with her soft exclamation. I left her mouth, kissing down the slim, fragrant column of her throat, nibbling and sucking lightly.

She was impressively unadorned compared to the other guests. Most of the women were dripping jewels. After all, this was a function for the business elite in the community and flamboyant wealth was the order of the day. I was glad for her modesty. There was no necklace or earrings to get in the way of my mouth's progress.

Abruptly, she pulled away. "I can't do this. We have to stop."

"Why?" I asked, my voice a rough whisper. My hand rubbed circles into her lower back.

"Because that's what happens when you get divorced! You don't sneak off into the garden to snog once the papers are signed. It's meant to be _over_. " And then, in a much smaller, almost puzzled voice, "It's meant to stop hurting like it did before..."

"Fine. If the divorce is the problem then marry me again."

She glared at me and then hit me on the arm. "How dare you ask me to marry you?"

"Again," I reminded her, against her mouth. "Marry me _again_."

Before she could give her anger further voice, I took her mouth once more. But this time, it was the type of kiss she liked from me – soft, teasing, the merest catching of lips, tentative flicks of the very tip of my tongue and plenty of pulling away before any one spot or sensation is fully explored.

It worked. I wondered what would have happened had I kissed her like this when we were still at school and loathed each other. Would the course of events have run differently? Would Dumbledore still be alive? It was foul of me to think that a mere kiss could have changed everything, and yet a kiss _had_ changed everything two years ago. For me, at least.

"Malfoy..." she gasped, sounding breathless when I pull away for the fourth or fifth time. Delightfully, she tried to follow my mouth on each occasion. It's a bit of a wonder that I managed any of this, being as drunk as I was.

I was, in that moment, happy.

"What are you doing to me?"

_This_, I wanted to tell her. I pulled her bodice down, easing her small, soft breasts out of her dress. I have seen all there is to see of Hermione Granger. Even so, the sight of her leaning back against that tree with her eyes closed, mesmerised me. She looked like a lure for Sin. And sadly, my track record in simply saying, 'no, thank you' has never been good.

She tried to pull her dress back up, but I was already cupping her breasts, staring down darkly at my hands kneading her familiar softness. I was clumsy and rough because I was so bloody soused. I would have closed my eyes, except I was afraid of what would happen when I opened them again.

"I have to get back. Ron's going to be wondering where I am...."

Everything was suddenly set to pause. I couldn't speak. I felt like I couldn't even breathe. Something alien and overpowering took over me. I stared at her, in that starlit garden, partially undressed in virginal white, looking back at me with frightened, dark eyes. For a moment, my entire body turned rigid with hate. Not just for Weasley, but for Hermione and what she had brought me to.

"Draco?" I felt her hand on my cheek. "Are you feeling unwell?"

Yes, I was positively _sick_.

Of all the emotions I should have felt, utter animalistic possessiveness should not have been one of them. So many things had been ripped away from me. I'd had my very identity taken away and no one, not my parents, not the Minister's pardon, not even Hermione had been able to give it back. I was grim as I spun her around, pressing her into the tree that had previously been at her back. I made short work of the back of her dress, ripping it open to her waist and sending tiny metal eyelets fleeing outwards into the night.

"What do you think you're doing? Stop!" Her voice was hoarse with shock.

I didn't stop. I did the opposite. She braced herself against the tree with her palms to avoid being scratched by the bark. I held her there with one hand while the other hand hiked up the diaphanous layers of her gown. Once again, I was reminded of our wedding day, when I helped her gather up her bridal gown so it wouldn't catch on the door...

She froze when I reached her underwear, and for a moment, so did my hand.

"Draco Malfoy!" she shouted at me. Or into the tree, rather. "Have you _completely_ lost it?"

_Mine_, I silently screamed into the night. Mine! She was the one good, if completely unexpected thing I'd got out this fucked up mess that was my life and what does the universe do? It takes her away from me.

I would take her back.

She elbowed me in the ribs, turned around in the confines of my arms and slapped me across the face. "You stupid, drunken ass! I swear to God, Malfoy. Step away from me right now or I'm going to maim you." She held her wand under my chin.

If she knew how dark I was feeling, she would not have remained there with me. She would have run. But Hermione thought she could handle me, she always has done. And the old Death Eater in me had counted on the fact that she would not hurt me, no matter how much I provoked her. I caught her right wrist and plucked her wand from her grasp, tossing it into the darkness behind me.

Her scream of outrage is waylaid by a gasp as I pulled her to the ground. We struggled for a minute, me lying on top, her wriggling frantically beneath me. She eventually stopped, blew her hair out of her face and slapped her hands on my shoulders.

Suddenly we were as still as mountains. I was certainly as hard as one. All was strangely calm.

"Was this all part of your plan, then?" she asked, catching her breath. "Get me alone to talk to me and then throw me on the ground and toss my skirt up over my head?"

I parted her legs with my knee. Her dress was already bunched up around her waist. She stared at me all the while. "Draco, are you even listening?"

I lifted my hips to make room for my hand as I pulled down her underwear. She was slack and unresisting. I found the parting in my dress robes and then fumbled with the button fly of my trousers.

"Draco." Her voice was imploring, but firm.

I took myself in my hand, ignoring the need to squeeze and provide some tactile relief from the straining pressure. She could have screamed, beat at me, pulled my hair, scratched my face, pushed and bit and whatever else desperate people do in situations like this, but she chose to stare at me.

She cupped my face with clammy palms. "I'm saying no. Are you listening to me? I'm not fighting you, but I'm saying no. Don't do this to me. Don't do it to yourself, because you're going to have to add to this to the long list of things you have never been able to forgive yourself for."

Those words had meaning and value. They were _important_ words, but all I remember thinking was that I was _so close..._

I pulled her knees up around me. She offered no resistance, except the condemnation in her eyes. "Malfoy, I said no."

The force of that look made me stop, momentarily. I stared down at her, blearily. "No?"

The sun came out a little in her eyes. She gave me a tremulous, encouraging smile. "That's right sweetheart, I said-"

"_No_," I repeated, and then I pushed forward.

It didn't take very long. Four or five sharp thrusts that carried us along the grass and dead leaves and crushed gardenia blooms that littering the ground. I tensed over her, fitting my flushed face into the warm crook of her neck as I came. I felt her right arm hold me to her, her trembling fingers stroked the back of my hair.

"Oh, Draco..." she said, and the sadness there drilled a direct path into my forebrain.

The white hot haze of pleasure abated. All the anger, rage and jealousy leached away leaving nothing but horror. The horror was belated, but acute. My head swam with it.

Clumsily, I attempt to pull her torn clothing over her, covering her. Ironically, I wanted to protect her from even a further _suggestion_ of harm. I realised I was still lying on top of her and immediately rolled away.

In no particular hurry, she pulled up her underwear from where it had been caught around her ankles and then sat with her back against the tree. Her beautiful hair had tumbled free from its clips. "You're not supposed to do it like that, you know." Her eyes were huge and mournful in her pale face. I couldn't look at her and she wouldn't let me look anywhere else. "You're supposed to win back what you lost, not _take_ it back because you're a sore loser."

This was beyond apologising. What could I _say_?

She stood, and I awkwardly tried to assist her, but she brushed my hand away. Hermione Granger wrapped her dignity around her like a cloak.

"This ends our association, Malfoy. You don't get to speak to me or touch me ever again. Is that understood?" A tear finally managed to escape her. She turns her face away to compose herself for a moment. When she looked at me once more, the steel was back in her eyes. "I forgive you, Draco. That's going to be the easy part."

She could have been talking about what I did to us in to end our marriage a year earlier, or what I did to her that night. I'm not sure.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. That one word sounded like the swish of guillotine blade rushing down to meet me.

When I look up again, she had retrieved her wand and left. I barely made it into the bushes where I was violently sick. The scent of the flowers in that garden would never be the same for me again.


	3. Chapter 3

_******_

_**A really, really good pen is often a mystery. It's never your pen. It's someone else's. It's the tethered pen at the post office. It's the one you're handed when you sign for a purchase. The irony of finding the perfect pen is that the enjoyment is finite. **_

**_**_**

My quill-pen wasn't working. I tried again, but there was no ink. I thought the nib might have been broken. In my line of work, I always travel with a good, working pen, but I must have grabbed a dud that morning. I shook it and tried to sign my name. It was no good.

I looked up at Hermione from under hair that could have done with a combing. I might have thrown in a shave as well. My appearance was an extension of my pen. Inkless. No words. Broken.

_Oh, well_, my eyes said to her. _We tried to get divorced. It didn't work. Let's just stop this and go home now..._

My attorney, Deidre, swiftly produced a replacement. "Here you go, Mr. Malfoy. Use mine."

Numbly, I stared down at her gold, Muggle fountain pen, taking it and rolling its perfectly balanced weight between my thumb and forefinger. I knew it would write brilliantly. This was _that_ kind of pen. Pens like this ended wars and signed peace treaties.

"Mr. Malfoy," Deidre gently prodded, "do you need a minute?"

I had twelve months of marriage, but yes, even a minute more would have been a blessing.

Hermione's documents entered this office already signed and neatly held together with a paperclip. She sat across from me with no representation. I really didn't know why I even needed a lawyer. It's not like I was worth much. Not as much as before, anyway. My father was the one who insisted on representation. The townhouse was mine, but she wasn't asking for any part of it. She just wanted _out_ and who could blame her?

I gripped the pen and signed where I was supposed to. My full name is very long, so this took a while. I wished it was longer, then we would have been there forever and the deed would never actually get done.

"And right _there_," said Deidre, pointing to a spot I'd missed.

"Is that it, then?" Hermione asked. Her voice was raspy and her eyes were rimmed with red.

"Yes, thank you," Deidre replied. They spoke briefly, but I wasn't paying attention.

Hermione stood. So did I. I've always had manners, even if their timing is rather selective. For a minute, we were a couple of stunned mullets staring at each other in mutual misery.

She snapped out of it first, picked up her purse and her copy of the papers from the table. "Good luck, Malfoy," she told me.

I wanted to laugh.

_******_

_**Comeuppance is a grand thing, isn't it? I imagine it is an ancient and universal concept. Monkey A steals Monkey B's banana. Monkey A snatches it back and thumps his offending simian friend over the head. Because that's what you get for stealing. In the end, we're all a bunch of moneys arguing over a prize.**_

**_**_**

My head felt like it'd been cleaved in half with a Goblin's axe.

Besides the brain-squeezing pain, I also took note of the smell. Old sweat, liquor and general unwashed _me_. I thought I was still asleep and in the middle of an alcohol-addled nightmare, because I was seeing _Ronald Weasley_ opening the door and walking into the room. He sat on the edge of the bed, beside me. I felt the depression he made in the mattress and wondered at the vividness of the dream.

"Don't get out of bed on my account," he said. He was dressed in flying robes and had his broom strapped across his back. His long hair looked recently wind-blown and he was wearing his Auror badge on a leather chord around his neck.

I could barely summon a reply from the parched desert that was my mouth. I started to wonder if this was some very, very late official business. An arrest eleven years late, perhaps?

"See, it's like this," Weasley explained. "Three days is a long while for a wizard to go missing in this part of town when you consider that we have the benefit of instant travel. If you have to be somewhere in a hurry or if you _don't_ want to be somewhere at all, there's Apparation, flooing or flying. Only Hermione says you left your broom at home when you stormed out on her."

At mention of Hermione, the ragged edges of my memory started to braid back together again. Groggily, I sat up.

"And let's face it. You're not exactly unrecognisable, are you?" Weasley continued. "So I said to Harry. I said to him, I reckon he's lying low somewhere where he can pay people _not_ to know who he is. There aren't too many of those places in London. This was only our third stop." He sighed. "You're not very mentally situated right now, are you, Malfoy? Sit up, look around." Now this wasn't asking, this was _commanding_.

I sat back against the railed headboard and took in my surroundings. A tiny trap door opened up at the top of my head and someone poured in ice-cold _memory_, filling me up. The bottom dropped out of my world and Weasley was there to witness it fall right past him.

I was in brothel, where I had taken lodgings for the past two and a half days. That was not all I had taken, however. I blinked down at the sleeping girl beside me and then passed a shaking hand over my face.

"Oh, yes," Weasley said, nodding. His blue eyes were like gimlets. "Imagine my surprise when the manager of this little establishment tells me that he's had a well-heeled lodger staying here for the past two nights - payment up front, extra if he keeps sending up bottles of Ogden's when you run out."

I stared at the sleeping girl. Merlin, she was young. Thick, toxic remorse replaced all the blood in my body.

He misread the look on my face, apparently. "Don't worry, she's not dead or anything." With a small grimace, Weasley picked up an empty bottle from the floor and set it on the nearest bedside table. "Though I suspect she'll have a hangover to rival yours. Best to keep it down to a dull roar or you'll wake her before the main event."

"What do you want, Weasley?" I whispered.

"Hermione," he replied, and before I could do or say anything else, he continued, "is waiting outside that door."

I knew what his endgame was and there was nothing I could do to save myself. It was my fault. I was always my fault. And all because of a stupid argument and my damnable pride. "Weasley, don't do this...I'll tell her myself, but damn you, don't you let her come in here."

He rose to his feet and I hated, utterly hated the way he brushed at his trousers, as if the vileness of the room and the situation had contaminated his person.

"I think it's time you understood what is to _lose_, Malfoy. You still don't get it after all these years, do you? You lost the war, but you really didn't lose anything. Where's the justice in that? I lost a brother, my parents lost a son. A whole generation at Hogwarts lost their childhood. Hermione doesn't belong with you any more than a snake belongs with a bird. You had everything and then you blew it. I have never done anything to harm your relationship with Hermione because of my feelings for her. Not anymore. You get to lose now, Draco, and I hope you bleed from this like the rest of us did eleven years ago!"

The sleeping girl beside me stirred because Weasley was shouting at me by the end of his monologue. He walked to the door and in a much softer voice, said, "My mum and Harry will be disgusted with me when they find out what I've done to Hermione today. But I'll wear the shame of it." His head dropped. "You don't deserve her. You never did."

The door shut behind him and I heard low voices. When it creaked open a moment later, my wife walked into the room. She was carrying a brown paper bag. I recognise the scent of pumpkin pasties and I knew she would have got them at Spaddocks because they're my favourite.

"Ron told me they'd found you and that you were probably going to be the worse for wear. I thought...I thought I'd bring some breakfast and then we could....talk."

She stopped short because she was taking in the room, me and the befuddled girl who was now sitting up in the bed.

Hermione Granger is a remarkable woman. She has more grace and dignity than anyone I have ever known. "I'm sorry, could you please excuse us for a moment?" she said to the girl, who was astute enough to understand she really needed to be somewhere else at that moment. Unfortunately, she took the sheet with her when she left, leaving me naked on the bed.

My wife glanced around the floor and retrieved my crumpled robes for me. "Here."

I stood and slipped them on. I think I died in that ensuing silence. I awakened reborn into shame and utter loss.

She touched her forehead, which was marred with a frown. I could tell she was working up to something. "I thought I would have done the walking out three days ago."

"Believe me, if anyone was to leave this relationship, I would always have imagined it to be you," I told her, quietly. I knew I'd lost her. This was not the time for justification and persuasion. I had brought this on myself and this was the price I had to pay.

She cleared her throat and I saw that she had started crying, albeit quietly. "Why couldn't I have been enough?"

My heart shattered. I took a step forward and stopped as she took one backwards. "You are more than enough," I hissed fiercely. "This is my...failing."

"And what am I to do now, do you suppose? Forgive you?" She seemed to be measuring me with her penetrating stare. "Say something, Malfoy. Say something or else or I'm walking out and I'm not looking back."

My self-enforced silence condemned me.

She nodded. "It's decided then. I'll be staying with my parents first...and then maybe with the Weasleys over the summer. I'll have Harry come around and collect my things from the house. I have my key, so you don't have to be..._home_." She faltered on that last word.

"Hermione...wait."

She paused at the door and turned around. Her breathing punctuated with small sobs.

"I'm sor-"

"Don't" she stopped me. "We both use that word a lot, but I don't think it means the same thing to either of us."

And then she left.

My wife left me.

_******_

_**A good storm-off is something to behold. My father is the undisputed King of Indignant Storm-Offs (with optional hair toss). Mine have always lacked a certain drama. **_

**_**_**

"You know I'm not good at apologizing, so I'll just skip it if it's all the same to you."

This is exactly what _not_ to say after I've obviously cocked up. I realised this too late and then wanted to bang my forehead on the banister. "Will you open the bloody door?"

It was the downstairs bathroom that time. She'd locked herself in.

I'd been drinking and Hermione had already told me what she'd do if she smelled brandy on my breath when I'm at home. Of course, it didn't help that it was 8.15 in the morning.

I had slipped up. I knew I had, but I was so close to finishing the work Renthrow had assigned me. The man was already aghast that I'd done eighty-percent of it. Hah! His spiteful little plan was backfiring and the other Directors had _noticed_ that my predecessor's abandoned portfolio was blooming under my care and attention. My days as a lackey (albeit one in upper management) were coming to an end. My assistant, Philomena, nearly had her head bitten off that morning when she found me sleeping on my desk and had the gall to lecture me for not going home the night before.

"You could have Owled your wife, at the very least!" she admonished.

I told her where to stick her marital advice. Unfortunately, I also brought this attitude home with me.

"Open the door!" I kicked it with a bare foot. It hurt.

"Fuck off, Malfoy!"

She was using Language. This was _not_ good.

The door swung open and she marched out. I watched, numbly, as she hauled a suitcase out from the top of our bedroom closet. She was angry enough that she wasn't selective in what she threw into the bag. I noted a small scatter cushion, a bare clothes hanger and a pair of my pyjama pants that were scrunched up, inside out, from the bottom of the bed.

"Hermione, will you just calm down for one minute?"

She avoided looking at me as she stormed over to her dresser, pulled open drawers and flung underwear into the suitcase. "No. I will not calm down. You didn't come home last night. _You didn't come home_."

I had already explained this to her. "I fell asleep! I was working late and I fell asleep, alright? I'm sorry, but I didn't realise until I woke up early this morning. What was I supposed to do? Send an Owl and then be home before it got here anyway?"

She turned and jabbed a finger at me. "And when you do come home, you give me that...that _line_ at the door and then brood in the study with a glass of brandy at bloody eight in the morning and you wonder why I act annoyed?" She threw her hands up in the air. "Am I just supposed to say, 'oh, welcome home dear, would you care for some breakfast with your _hard liquor_?'"

I took hold of her shoulders, gently, in an effort to calm her down. "I'm sorry! Do you hear me? I'm sorry. Look, it won't happen again. I'm almost finished."

She shook her head. "No. You _are_ finished. I should have done it a long time ago."

For a moment, my heart stopped and the blood froze in my veins. "Done what?" I whispered.

"I should have gone down to Gringotts and found out for myself what was happening there!"

_Oh._ Right. I could breathe again. She wasn't talking about leaving me, she's talking about-

"What?" I asked, suddenly frowning. "What do you mean you went to Gringotts?"

"I went there and spoke to Philomena last week. And _don't_ you give me that look, Draco Malfoy. She cares about you. Philomena didn't spill your sodding secrets, I _forced_ her to tell me because I may have fibbed a little by telling her it was a DMLE issue. She told me all about what Alistair Renthrow's doing to you! I cannot believe you didn't tell me!"

It's amazing how utter soul-rending fear can switch to sheer fury in the space of a sentence. I wanted to throttle her.

"_What did you do_?" It was perhaps something in the manner of my tone or my expression, because I saw a look on Hermione's face that I had not seen since we were eighteen.

I was frightening her. I realised I was still holding on to her shoulders, much too tightly now. Abruptly, I released her.

"I told someone who cares, is what I did," she told me, with her chin raised. "Kingsley will speak to your Board of Directors at their meeting next week. They have heard foul rumours about Renthrow's sadistic antics, but no one's actually come forward with a complaint until now."

"You had no right to do that." I suppose I'm like my father in this instance. We both go very quiet when we've progressed beyond mere anger. I was so quiet she looked like was straining to hear me.

"I had every right. Not just as a member of the DMLE, but as a concerned citizen and your wife! These kinds of abuses need to be stamped out! How else are we to move on?"

"I was handling it."

She shook her head again. "No, you weren't. You were killing yourself at work and this marriage in the process."

"Who died and made you Champion of the Beleaguered?" I sneered.

"_Albus Dumbledore_!" she shouted at me, with then gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. "Oh my God. Draco I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that."

I felt like she'd slapped me. I was stunned and then I was humiliated. Rage rounded off this volatile trifecta.

I left. I didn't know where I was going at the time, but Knockturn Alley was always the best bet. There were places there where I could marinate in alcohol.

Sometimes, the most effective storm-offs are the ones you never see yourself making.

_******_

_**Coming home is a state of mind. I've lived in many places, but I never truly felt like I belonged to a house, and the house to me, than when I was married to Hermione. **_

_******_

I wished she's given me time to at least put my satchel down and toss back a drink before supper. I was barely through the front door when she was on me like a cheetah on a gazelle. It was fantastic to be home, in any case, no matter the reception.

"Draco, it's a quarter to ten! Where were you? I Owled the office, but there was no reply."

Of course there wasn't. I could hardly expect Philomena to work an additional four hours without pay. Renthrow had not approved my request for paid overtime, for either me or Philomena. If he expected me to cave after six months of this, he was sorely mistaken.

"I had to work," I told my wife, as I slipped my cloak off and hung it up in the hallway closet. I decided I would have a bath first and I wondered if asking for some company was out of the question.

"This is getting ridiculous Draco. They can't keep making you work these obscene hours."

Yes they could. They _were_. "Not all of us have the good fortune of being government employees, with your contracted, eight hour days," I muttered. I wasn't resentful, it was just simple fact. Ministry employees enjoy excellent employment conditions under Kingsley Shacklebolt.

That was a big hint for her to drop the topic, but sometimes my brilliant wife could be daft. "If you want a job with the Ministry, I can look into-"

I rounded on her. "I already have a job. I don't need you to set one up for me."

"Ok! Fine! Stop yelling at me!"

"I'm not-!" I glared at her. I _was_ yelling. That was unusual for me. "Just drop it, alright? I'm sorry I've been working late so often, but it's unavoidable." To my dismay, tears filled her eyes.

"Hermione..."

"The hours you work _are_ a concern, I'm not going say they're not. But it's the fact that you don't really tell me anything. Not just about your work, but anything that doesn't have to involve me by default. Don't you see? We're married, Draco, but all you seem to be willing to share with me is your bed."

"Yes, I know we're married, thank you," I snapped. "Bit hard to forget that fact when you jump down my bloody throat as soon as I walk in the door. And funny, I don't recall hearing any complaints from you about what goes on in our bed."

She made a frustrated noise and stormed up the stairs. I heard our bedroom door slam shut a minute later.

"Oh, good! Brilliant!" I roared from the foot of the steps. "I'll just get my own supper then, shall I?"

Needless to add, I did not end up having any company in the bath that evening.

_******_

_**Muggle Action Movies are a recent, guilty pleasure. I have no idea where this silly rumour about my penchant for more cerebral pursuits comes from. Chess and diabolical scheming are all well and good in moderation. I'm the same as most other blokes. The more blood and gore in a movie, the better. **_

**_**_**

It was a little too cold for a walk, but she wanted to work off the heavy desert we'd eaten.

I heard what she said to me, but I was too exhausted to work up the necessary outrage on her behalf. Also, I thought she was making a big deal out of nothing, really. Honestly, what had she expected? My father may be a law-abiding citizen now, but he's _still_ Lucius Malfoy.

"You could have warned me," she muttered. We were walking down the carriageway of Malfoy Manor, having just attended yet another disastrous dinner with my parents.

I could have warned her, I suppose, but I hadn't known Felicity Crabbe was going to be in attendance and even then, I'd been too busy trying not to fall asleep at the table. Exhaustion seemed to be my base state that year. Renthrow was enjoying his handiwork. I was losing weight, I seemed to have permanent dark circles under my eyes and my blood-caffeine level was probably on par with my blood-alcohol.

"I mean, it's bad enough that he refuses to come to our house and so we have to have dinner here..."

"'Here' being the house I was born in," I reminded her, a little testily.

"Yes, I know that." She patted my hand. "What I didn't expect was him to invite Vincent Crabbe's mother to dinner as well. What was he playing at? The woman looked like she wanted to lunge across the table and choke me to death."

I snorted. "Trust me, she _always_ looks like that."

Hermione stared at me. "Were you or were you not at the Battle of Hogwarts ten years ago?"

"You're referring to Vincent's death?" I asked. "Don't you worry about Felicity Crabbe. Her son died because of his own stupidity. _You_ had nothing to do with it."

"You nearly died as well," she said softly, and squeezed my hand.

"Yes. I recall a lot of that going on that night."

She was lost in memory for a while. And I felt the ice creep over my heart as her hand went cold and slack in mine for a moment. Only for a moment however, and then her firm, warm grip returned.

I could have killed her in my maniacal quest to capture Harry Potter for Voldemort. One luckily aimed spell could have finished her. She could have tripped, fallen, failed to defend herself against a more experienced, more ruthless Death Eater. Crabbe could have succeeded in killing her. Merlin knows he certainly _tried_. My father could have killed her at the Ministry in our fifth year.

To this day, I can't understand how Lucius and I escaped an Azkaban sentence. Let alone how I ended up asking Hermione Granger to marry me. To be forgiven can sometimes be a debilitating thing, especially when one is constantly reminded of it. Wizards have long memories.

I slid my arm around her waist and drew her close, needing to feel her warmth against me. I hated feeling like I would never be on an even keel with Hermione. I couldn't ever make up for what I did at Hogwarts and I found myself always trying to catch up, always censoring sentences before they eventuate, measuring my actions to see how they could be interpreted. I didn't know who the original 'me' was any more. It was tiring living like this.

She sensed my melancholy and rose on her toes to kiss me on the temple. "It's still early. Did you want to do something else before we go home?"

I wanted to go home and make love to her in front of our lounge room fire. And then I wanted to sleep until next year. But I felt guilty at how often I was away at work, so I usually let her pick what we did for fun. "What do you have in mind?"

"There's this movie that Ron and Harry are raving about."

Oh, _joy_. I knew Potter and Weasley's taste in movies. The last thing I saw with Hermione was also on their dubious recommendation. It was called 'Borat' and I'm still waiting for that hour and a half of my life back.

We ended up seeing '300', an action movie about the Battle of Thermopylae. Suffice to say, you couldn't have pried my eyes away from the screen with a metal spatula and a tub of grease.

I did get to make love to her in front of our lounge room fireplace later that evening. And despite my dire predictions, I had enough energy left in me to do it twice more before I passed out on the carpet. My poor wife didn't have the heart to wake me. She dragged down the sheets and blankets from our bedroom and slept there with me on the floor.

**** **

_**A thrown gauntlet is impossible to ignore. It's funny. Potter and I are like chalk and cheese. The only thing we have in common is Hermione. And yet, like Potter, I can never turn away from a personal challenge. **_

_******_

Alistair J. Renthrow was the Director of Foreign Currency Management, the section I managed at Gringotts. We enjoyed a new political and economic stability in this post-Voldemort world and other wizarding nations have taken the plunge in backing the European wizarding currency.

I'm a banker. The high-security vaults I managed house gold from all parts of Europe, Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and the occasional African despotic ruler. The exception has been North America. The US wizarding government still does not implicitly trust the security of their gold to a country that had known both a Grindewald _and_ a Voldemort. Can't say I blame them.

On that Thursday morning, Renthrow walked into my office with a smile like rusted razor blades. I was instantly cautious.

Renthrow is nouveau riche. Up until his success at Gringotts, his family had been as working class as a pair of old, miner's boots. He hated me. I couldn't pinpoint why, until Philomena said, "Have you see him drink tea, Mr. Malfoy? He can take a hundred deportment classes and read a dozen books on etiquette, but he's not ever going to hold his tea cup like you do."

After that--besides being slightly self-conscious about how I handled a tea-cup--I began to notice how he watched me; with that slight sneer disguised as perpetual managerial dissatisfaction. He frequented the same tailor as I did, but for some unexplainable reason, his trousers were always just a little too short, or the fit of his jackets stretched too taught (I suspected the chip on his shoulder might have had something to do with this). He was a man not entirely at ease in his skin or in the external environment he has chosen to work in. None of this was my fault, though it had become my _problem_. I suspected he felt a mixture of glee and anxiety at having to be my superior. He did what he could to make my life hell at Gringotts. I sidestepped and deflected where possible, but I knew that day had been coming for a while.

After Philomena showed him into my office, without so much as a 'good morning', Renthrow tossed a thick folder on my desk.

"Henry Winkings resigned last week. You're taking over Vault Security Assessments."

I blinked and then reached across for the file, flicked it open and observed the numerous red-flagged forms. "May I ask how long I'll be assuming Winking's responsibilities?"

"Until I can find a suitable replacement," answered Renthrow. "You know how it is. All the new graduates want to intern with the Ministry. No one wants to work here."

What a load of tripe that was. True, Ministry positions are always highly sought after, but working at Gringotts is special. We only accepted the best and brightest. What I was looking at inside that folder was enough work to keep an entire office of staff buried for a year, and he expected me to do it entirely on my own.

"Renthrow, there is no way I can deliver these projects on these dates. Not while seeing to the mess created by this recent theft. Perhaps, with a few additional staff members and an extension on the deadlines, I could-"

"No extensions, I'm afraid," he cut in. "The DMLE is nearly finished with their investigation into the little thieving incident. And I don't see why you need to be involved."

"A hundred kilos of gold is not 'a little thieving incident'," I said, puzzled that he wasn't as disturbed by it as the rest of us. "The Aurors have asked for a report from all the divisional managers regarding our security. I am yet to submit mine," I reminded him.

"I'm sure you could get out of having to hand in that report if you really wanted too," he replied, pointedly. The bastard smirked at me. I pretended not to know what he meant by that. "You will meet those deadlines, Malfoy, or..."

I leaned back in my chair and did yet another thing I picked up from my father. I stared down my nose at him even though he's standing and I'm not. "Or what?"

He swallowed and turned an unbecoming shade of magenta. "Or you'll be sacked."

"Sacked? My department has consistently been a sterling performer here."

And then he _said_ it. I think he never wanted to be so obvious about his motives, but he couldn't help himself that day. "If you have a problem with it, you can always complain to your wife."

I stood. My chair scraped against the floor. "_What did you say_?"

Wisely, Renthrow edged towards the door. "I'm sure Mrs. Malfoy has enough clout with the Minister to do something about this, if the thought of a little extra work troubles you that much?"

A _little_ extra work? He'd dumped me between a rock and a hard place. Either I run crying to Hermione that I'm being bullied at work or I take the bullying and the Winkings file with it.

"You'll have your deadlines," I hissed. "Now get out of my office before I put my fist through your face."

"Now, see here!"

I walked around the desk, and was disgusted to see him scramble for the door handle.

"You keep your distance, Malfoy! I could fire you for this alone!"

It took supreme effort not to touch him. I advance on him, not stopping until my face was an inch away from his red, sweating visage. "You could, but I'd still go home Draco Malfoy, wouldn't I? Who are you but the haphazardly lucky son of a Knockturn Alley meat vendor?" I tilted my head down and sniffed delicately at his collar. "Never can get rid of the stink of street-side sausage, can you?"

He burbled something. It sounded like an attempt at a threat, but even in that regard, he would always be hopelessly outclassed. And then he was out the door, slamming it behind him.

When Philomena came in, I was sitting at my desk with my head in my hands. "I take it you heard all that?"

"Bit hard not to." She took the folder from my desk, inspected it and put it back, looking alarmed. "Tell Hermione. The Ministry is severely against this kind of thing and Renthrow does it better than most."

This 'kind of thing' is the unofficial practice some members of the community have adopted to make the lives of Voldemort's former supporters as miserable as possible. Threats, harassment, blackmail, extortion and sometimes, worse.

I sat back in my chair, drumming my fingers on my desk as I thought. "Just pull up my diary for the next six months. And cancel all non-urgent appointments for the rest of today. We've got work to do."


	4. Chapter 4

**

_**Sleeping in--CORRECTION--**__**Waking up with Hermione Granger is an Experience.**_

**_**_**

It was Sunday and I usually get to sleep in on a Sunday. However, some things are worth waking up for.

I awakened to the sensation of soft, warm kisses travelling down from my cheek to my neck, over my bare chest and down to my stomach, just under my navel. The sheets were dragged lower. Long, curly hair followed in the wave of these kisses, contriving to brush along all my ticklish spots. I didn't bother opening my eyes or moving a muscle.

Hermione loved doing this to me. I was a lucky man for quite a few reasons, but her propensity to wake me up like this on weekend mornings had to be at the top of the list. No denying she had a talent for it and, thank Merlin, I had the sense not to ask how she acquired her skill.

If I had the gall to _not_ already be hard by the time she reached my member, she would fit the soft, malleable head of my cock into her mouth and suck lightly, first giving you the impression that this is _all_ she will do. This is all some women are inclined to give and I would not have taken issue with it. It never mattered how many times she'd done it to me, my brain always snapped back to these same conclusions.

But no, she takes it further. She laps at me; up, down and all around until I'm hard, glistening and lubricated and sometimes, leaking. Then her mouth seals over the very tip of me to resume what she started, only this time her bottom lip extends down further, dragging more of me into her mouth as she slides down. Sometimes, she lets her teeth assist along the sensitive underside of my cock. This drives me _mental_. All I want to do is grab her head and shove up into it, but obviously I don't. I endure her slow, inching-suck down my cock until, Merlin, I can see her mouth stretched open wide around the base and then the witch pulls herself off and repeats this torture until I give her what she wants – complete, boneless release.

Most other people have alarm clocks. _I_ had Hermione Granger.

Nothing could have moved me from my very comfortable spot. I was one with the mattress. The placement of the pillows was perfection. It was cold and raining outside and my wife was a goddess. On that particular morning, after she was done reducing me to jelly, she cuddled beside me on the bed and said, "I'd like to go to MacDonald's for breakfast today."

My eyes snapped open. "MacDonalds." I grimaced. "Really?"

"Yes, I feel like hotcakes."

I never understood why they call them 'hotcakes'. Surely, Moist Sponge Flaps is a more apt description. MacDonald's doesn't have real food. The butter isn't butter. The syrup isn't syrup and the eggs manage--impossibly--to be both rubbery _and_ powdery. How were there millions of these restaurants all over the world? Anything that served food that bad in the wizarding world would have been burned down by an angry mob after a month.

"I know you like the hash browns and the fries," she commented, sensing my lack of excitement. The wench was grinning.

This was true. I tolerated the hash browns and the French fries on the logic that you couldn't really go wrong with deep fried potato. "Fine," I groaned, rousing myself out of bed and stretching. "Off we go to MacDonalds."

She kissed me on the cheek (in triumph) and had the shower on full blast when I joined her. I kept her there for longer than was strictly necessary for our mutual cleanliness.

We barely made it to the city by eleven and nearly missed breakfast altogether.

**

_**If I had a final meal, and I'm assuming it would be at least three courses; it would be crème brulee, followed by crème brulee and then, crème brulee. **_

**_**_**

I caught her about the waist as she turned the corner to go to the powder room. She giggled as I opened an exit and pulled her into a stairwell. The train of her dress nearly caught under the heavy door and I spent a minute carefully gathering up the champagne coloured silk and tulle and then shut the door with my foot. She was doubled over laughing by the time I was finished.

"You're a much better bridesmaid than Ginny," she told me.

"Thank you. I think."

She considered the asymmetrical train of her gown with a grimace. Tell me the truth. I look like a cake with melted icing running down one side, don't I?"

I quite liked the gown actually. I hadn't expected to when she first described it to me. It's modern and I am not comfortable with modern. It was a strapless mermaid-cut sheath of cream, shantung silk with a deconstructed train of tulle and raw-edged silk falling from her left hip. As is her style, she wore minimal jewellery – just her wedding ring, a diamond bracelet that was a gift from Potter and his wife and a pair of diamond stud earrings from me.

"You look fine," I said, never one to over-compliment. "At the moment, however, I'm much more interested in how you'll look _out_ of that dress." I placed a hot, wet kiss on her bare, beautiful shoulder.

She shivered in response and then, to my annoyance, grabbed my wrist to check my watch. "We have two hours left of the reception, Mr. Malfoy. Can you keep it in your pants until then?

"Two more hours of this torture?"

"I'm so sorry that you're finding this tedious, but you did _ask_ me to marry you," she said, primly.

"So I did," I drawled. "Tell me, does your Great Uncle Fargus always bring his imaginary poodle out with him or is it only on special occasions?" I had to wait until she caught her breath from laughing again. I wondered if I would ever get used to all that laughing.

"Uncle Fargus introduced you to 'Ruby', I gather?"

"He was feeding this invisible dog under the table!" I informed.

"He's ninety, half blind and mostly deaf. Let him have his eccentricities."

"Oh, he can have those. But do _I_ have to have them too?"

The peals of laughter continued.

"He asked me to pet the thing in front of your mother, who kept putting food on my plate when she thought I wasn't looking, might I add?"

She slid her arms around my neck and looked up at me with mild concern. "We both noticed you didn't eat much dinner. Is it nerves?"

I snorted. "Meeting Voldemort was nerves, this is nothing in comparison."

Some of the warmth left her face. "I'm sure you didn't just compare our wedding to an audience with Voldemort, may he _not_ rest in peace."

I winced. "Sorry." If I'd only known how often I was going to say this word to her, in the course of our brief marriage.

Hermione forgave me. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

She didn't reply, but led me back into the hotel corridor and past a set of swinging double doors. I saw that we were now in the kitchens.

An effeminate young man whom I vaguely recognised as the head caterer, rushed over to us. "Miss Granger! Eeez there a problem?"

"Not at all Philippe and it's _Mrs. Malfoy_ now." She grinned as I puffed up slightly with pride. "We were just after some desert. If it's ready, may we have some before the rest of the guests sit down to eat it?"

Philippe looked distraught to have to disappoint his client. "I am sorreee, Madame, but we are only halfway feeeneeshed! Maybe I get you and Mr. Malfoy something else, yes?"

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Really? No crème brulee?"

The caterer walked to a large silver fridge and pulled out two ramkins of wobbly custard. "Your crème brulee, Madam Malfoy," Philippe said. "But we are yet to fire zeee tops to make zeee hard candy shell, you see?"

Hermione picked up the bowls. "That's alright, these will be fine! Thank you, Philippe." She handed me one of the ramkins, took two spoons from the caterer, and led me out the back door of the kitchen.

I wasn't surprised she knew where she was going, having been heavily involved in all aspects of the planning of our wedding.

We came to a quiet balcony at what appeared to be the opposite end of the hotel. The cafe attached to it was closed for the night, so we were left to eat our delicious desert in happy silence, observing the busy London city traffic below. The absence of magic from our wedding in order to accommodate Hermione's Muggle relatives had also caused the absence of my parents. I felt slighted by their stubbornness, particularly since they had already given us their blessings. I wasn't sure how the day would go, but it had been tolerable so far. I found I could tolerate anything in Hermione's presence, but she was too often away from me when we were speaking to our guests. I think she understood this and that was why she had given me that small interlude with her.

All too soon, it was time to go back.

She checked my watch again. "Speeches in five minutes." I realised she had the evening's schedule memorised. Someone once said to me that Hermione Granger could organise the invasion of countries. I am inclined to agree.

My wife of four hours took my hand. "Are you ready?"

No. But that had never stopped me before.

**

_**Of all the highly unlikely things to have happened to me in my life, my twenty-first date with Hermione Granger tops the list. **_

**_**_**

Allow me to recap.

I became a Death Eater in my seventh year at Hogwarts, following in my father's less than illustrious footsteps. I assisted in the murder of Albus Dumbledore, arguably one of the greatest sorcerers of modern times. I tried to capture Harry Potter for my then Master, Lord Voldemort. I engineered the invasion of Hogwarts by Death Eaters, which resulted in the death of students, Aurors, Order members, Vincent Crabbe and indirectly, Severus Snape.

I now had to add 'making love to Hermione Granger' to the list. Our temperance and level-headedness in undertaking our arguably unlikely relationship would have made Dumbledore and Snape proud. We could not be accused of rushing things. Everything was smooth and non-eventful until our twenty-first date. She didn't even let me kiss her until that evening.

In hindsight, perhaps I should have waited to kiss her goodnight at her doorstep, because what that kiss led to was better suited to the privacy of a bedroom. Or at least somewhere _indoors_.

Is a car considered indoors?

The problem with cooking at an excruciatingly low simmer over a very long period of time, is that all it takes is one small lapse and suddenly your soup's just about boiled over the stove. It was past midnight and there were only three cars in the lot, one of which belonged to her. We were tumbled over in the backseat like a couple of hormone-ridden seventeen year olds and a seat belt buckle was digging painfully into my knee.

Her mouth was pressed to my neck, sucking lightly at my pulse as I executed a slow slide and thrust rhythm inside her. Any faster and the evening would have been over in thirty seconds. The little moans and whimpers she made were torture. I paused, bracing myself up on my elbows to look down at her. All I saw were shadows and perhaps the suggestion of a smile. Fortuitously for us, she happened to park in a dark corner. I wished I could have seen her expression that night. And her body. Merlin, I had been waiting _months_ to see her. That evening, I had to settle for touch and taste.

"Am I crushing you?" My low, raspy voice sounded alien to my ears. This wasn't _me_ surely? Draco Malfoy didn't do this sort of thing.

"Yes," she said, bumping my nose with hers in an effort to locate my mouth. "Crush me some more."

She pulled my head down to finish the kiss that started this whole mess and then I was moving inside her again.

I recall I got a little further than thirty seconds, thankfully.

**

_**The best pumpkin pasties in the world come from two places. The Hogwarts kitchens and Spaddock's Bakery. **_

**_**_**

That Monday was cold, wet and sleety. Pale, pathetic excuse for spring sunshine filtered through the clouds, but it was sunshine nonetheless. A long cloud shoved off at precisely the right moment. I stood on my doorstep with my face turned up to the heavens and enjoyed that long-absent, golden warmth. And then it was gone. But I could smell sunshine on my robes now and I'd always liked that.

It was bad enough being a Monday. But only the week before, a hundred kilograms of gold bullion disappeared from the Foreign Investments Treasury. This, thank Merlin, did not happen under _my_ watch, but as we are already short-staffed due to an industrial dispute between the goblin staff and their management, us lowly human employees at Gringotts were attempting to pick up the slack.

I was sorting through the numerous Howlers that had been steadily piling up since news of the theft had reached the ears of affected clients.

There was a knock at the door (quick and firm), telling me it was my assistant, Philomena, and not my arsehole of a Director, Alistair Renthrow. Renthrow never bothered with knocking. If he had his way, none of our offices would have doors and we'd all be slaving away in those claustrophobic, demeaning little cubicles you found in Muggle offices.

"Come."

Philomena entered, bearing my tea on a little tray. I gave her a Look. Normally, she'd manage to acquire some biscuits from the stricken office pantry, knowing that I hardly ever had breakfast before arriving. That morning, the little plate of biscuits was conspicuously absent. I know I sometimes act like an over-entitled git, but alas, I looked forward to those tasty little biscuits.

"Don't worry, I haven't forgotten your breakfast," she said, in reply to my crestfallen expression. "Your nine am has apparently brought some breakfast with her."

"I don't have an appointment now. I'm supposed to be free until lunch in order to answer these sodding Howlers," I reminded her. On cue, one of the older specimens erupted into flames.

"This appointment's from the DMLE, Mr. Malfoy," Philomena explained. Using her wand, she put out the minor fire without missing a beat. "They tend not to tell you when they have an appointment until it's _time_ for the appointment, if you get my meaning. It's about the theft, sir."

Bloody DMLE investigators, I thought. Sod them all. They'd been crawling all over the bank for the past week.

"Fine. Send the woman in. Who is it this time? The last one who saw me was the most vile, withered old hag imaginable..."

Philomena, who was usually impassive, looked faintly amused as she paused at the door. "Yes, Mr. Malfoy. I'll send the, er, _hag_ in presently."

The DMLE investigator breezed into my office a moment later. I say 'breezed' because she was wearing white linen robes, a great quantity of unbound, curly, dark hair and was carrying a brown paper bag.

I could smell pasties.

"Good morning Malfoy. Sorry about the short notice," Hermione Granger said. She sat before being invited to do so and folded legs that I had not recalled being that golden or that long or quite that shapely.

I hadn't personally seen or spoken to Granger in a number of years, though I had noticed how much growing up she's done, on the pages of the Prophet or in the Witch Weeklies that Philomena kept in the reception room. I supposed I must have done some growing up as well because Granger was giving me the oddest look. It was mixture of caution and intense curiosity. On any other face, curiosity is standard. On Hermione's it's _riveting_.

Seeing her in my office discombobulated me. She was clearly successful. She was self-possessed, articulate, and intelligent as always, and...Merlin, why the hell was she looking at me like that? I felt myself redden slightly from her close scrutiny and that added an angry edge to my tone.

"What do you want?"

She was mostly unfazed by my brusqueness, but I saw her fingers tighten over the paper bag. "I'm here on DMLE business. Kingsley has requested a tour of the remaining vaults and a report on how you undertake your inventory. In short, he wants me to report on your operations."

Kingsley. She referred to the Minister by his first name. "My operations?" I asked, defensively. "It wasn't my department's vaults that got broken into."

"Gringotts' operations," she corrected. "This isn't an investigation into your department. It's a check into procedures here to improve security now that we handle foreign investment accounts."

"And why do _I_ have to do it?" I realise I was being extremely rude, but I had rarely been anything other towards her (on the occasions that I haven't tried to kill her). I suspected my brain merely reverted to its old programming.

"I was told by your supervisor, Mr. Renthrow, that you could take me on a tour and explain the security systems you currently utilise, including your risk assessment initiatives and-"

"Giving you a written report would be less annoying," I interrupted.

Not so, actually. Putting together a report would have taken much longer and would have been considerably _more_ annoying.

She unfolded the top of the brown paper bag and my office filled with a familiar aroma. "A report is not a tour, Draco. I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist. Pumpkin pastie? They're about twenty minutes old and the best in Diagon Alley, I'm told."

This was more than a mere pumpkin pastie. This was some kind of peace offering. I suspected there was a proverbial hatchet buried somewhere inside that gently steaming pastry.

"Spaddocks' Bakery?" I inquired.

"Mrs. O'Brien's," she replied, still holding out the pastie.

I took it from her, bit into it, chewed and swallowed. "Spaddocks' is better."

"Oh? You have to show me where it is some day," she said, and there was a challenging glint in her brown eyes.

I was immediately suspicious. What game was she playing? She _knew_ Spaddocks'. It's a bloody wizarding institution. There are pygmy people in rainforests who know about Spaddocks' Bakery, for fuck's sake. This wasn't regular power-play or posturing. I know all about power games.

This was... I think a mere breath could have floored me when I finally realised what was happening.

_Hermione Granger was flirting with me._

I approached her and as I did, I watched for the details, because truth and lies always oozes out in the fine print. As a banker, I know this well enough. Accordingly, I noticed how her hands shook ever so slightly and she couldn't hold my gaze for longer than a few seconds when I stared directly at her.

"Are you free to do the tour now?" She was already standing, the presumptuous woman.

"No. But you don't care, do you?" I murmured, as I grabbed my outer robes and slipped them on over my business shirt and trousers.

She smiled. "Come on, I'll throw in another pastie."


	5. Chapter 5

_**Epilogue – December 31st, 2009 **_

Hermione rolled up the parchment and placed it back inside Draco's hiding spot. It was daylight now. She checked at the door to see if their kidnappers were up and about. There were some noises coming from the floor above; a few muffled thumps that sounded like furniture being moved around. She gathered they had no intention of feeding their new prisoner some breakfast or providing anything for Draco.

_Bastards_. His lanky frame was all hollows and angles and there wasn't even any water.

She paced about the room, willing the tightness in her chest and the prickling sensation behind her eyes to go away. The last entry she'd read in his backdated journal was the first one he'd written on the parchment. That meeting in Draco's Gringotts' office had occurred three years ago.

God, had it really been that long? She did the sums. Seven years of schooling together at Hogwarts. Twelve years _since_ Hogwarts. Two years since they were married and one year since they signed the divorce papers. And in between all that was enough harrowing memory to fill ten journals.

Hermione was glad she'd read the entries in reverse order, because the newer, bad memories were always going to be sharper and clearer in her mind. Reading about the happy times _last_ was equivalent to underlining those parts of their history that ought to have more power and meaning than the recent ugliness.

So much of what she'd read had been a revelation to her, and Hermione was aghast to realise that there were parts of Draco Malfoy she had not reached or understood. She had waded in the shallows and once or twice, when he'd been in a particularly vulnerable mood, he'd opened up to her and she'd swum out to those colder, darker depths. But there were underwater canyons in him that she had yet to traverse. For example, she had no idea about the powerlessness and loss of identity he'd felt since their graduation from Hogwarts.

Had it been self-sabotage in the end, she wondered? She'd been so full of pride to think that the sheer unlikelihood of their relationship alone meant it was proof against failure. Eventually, after hours of sitting, standing, pacing and most of all, _thinking_, she crawled over to Draco and held him tightly until she too, fell asleep.

When Hermione opened her eyes, moonlight was spilling through the small window once more and Draco was sitting cross-legged, watching her. He looked furious. This was more reassuring than his previous stupor.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he whispered. "Are you out of mind?"

She sat up, stretching out the stiffness that came from sleeping on the cold, hard floor. "This was the only way."

"The only way to do what? _Die with me_?"

He was getting worked up and Hermione immediately tried to calm him down. She crawled over to the corner where she'd stashed their food, unwrapped the bundle and handed it to him. "Eat while you listen."

"Granger, you are certifiably insane! Do you have any idea what they could do-"

She clamped a hand over his mouth. "I'm not an idiot. I know the risks. Just please sit there quietly and listen to my plan. And eat."

He sat, ate and listened, albeit angrily.

Hermione tried to be as succinct as possible. "Harry and Ron are going to perpetrate a daring rescue."

He remained unimpressed. "And their plan was for you to get kidnapped as well? That doesn't make any sense."

Now came the sticky bit. Hermione ignored his glare and continued. "Um, they didn't actually know I was going to be kidnapped. Well, I expect they know _now_ because they would have found my note and instructions, which is why they'll attempt a rescue. Do you see?"

He didn't see. He stopped eating, stared icicles at her and said, "Start from the beginning."

"We'd been looking for you since the afternoon you never returned from your lunch break. The last person to see you was Ginny and she's been beside herself with guilt, because she thought you'd gone and done something stupid after she spoke to you."

"What kind of something stupid?" he asked, carefully.

Hermione hesitated. "You know? A bender... Or worse."

He sighed. "I was never suicidal, Hermione."

"Of course not! This is why we ruled out that possibility rather quickly. After you were missing for a week, it became an official Ministry investigation. And then your father received the first ransom note." She paused. "It asked for quite a large sum of gold..."

"So I hear. My father mustn't have been very impressed." Draco's gaze was fixed on the bread that he was currently breaking into piece in his hands.

"Well, he was bloody distraught actually," Hermione muttered. "He stormed all over the Ministry, demanding to know what we were doing about it."

Draco's head came up. "He did?"

"He called Kingsley a 'fair weather Minister'."

"Bloody hell." Draco whistled low. "And then what happened?"

"Ron, Harry and I took over the investigation, and in the meantime, we tried to raise the ransom."

"_You_ tried to raise the money? How?"

"Well, I can tell you it required quite a few trips to Gringotts..."

"You're telling me Potter and Weasley used their own money?"

She nodded. "We pooled it all together and _still_ came up short. That was when your father put Malfoy Manor on the market."

Draco was speechless. He stared at her with his mouth agape. Hermione took this opportunity to break off a piece of ham, wrap it in some bread and pop it into his mouth. "You're still not eating," she admonished.

He blinked and began chewing. "The Manor is really up for sale?"

Hermione snorted. "Yes, but mind you, no one was game enough to make an offer for the place."

"Uhuh. I wonder why..." Draco muttered, rhetorically

"And then Alistair Renthrow turned up dead."

"But he's the one who orchestrated this kidnapping!"

"I know," said Hermione. "Well, I _suspected_, but we weren't sure at the time. He was double-crossed, Draco. The kidnappers he hired already had their hostage and they didn't need some petty, white-collared criminal cutting it on their take."

"What do you mean white-collared criminal?"

"You remember the gold that went missing at Gringotts?"

He gave her a warm look. "Of course I remember. That was how you ended up in my office."

"Yes, well it was Renthrow who stole it."

"That oily, little bastard! No wonder he was so keen to keep me distracted with the Winkings file! And it took me months to write you the security report you ended up asking for."

"I know," she said, with some amusement. "All those visits I paid to your office to nag you about the, um, report."

"Yes, you were extremely persistent," he said, softly. He touched a curl near her ear. "I gather Renthrow's death led you to me, somehow?"

"Indeed it did," she confirmed. "We managed to _solve_ Renthrow's murder investigation. At that time, the murder and your kidnapping were not considered related. A man called Klaus Fitz was identified as the killer and the DMLE was about to issue a warrant for his arrest. They weren't listening to anything I had to say about how Fitz was possibly involved in your kidnapping and taking him into custody would result in his associates disposing of you."

"Ah. I think I see where this is going..."

"I had no proof, of course. Ron and Harry believed me, but they had no authority to launch a rescue mission based on a hunch. So I...well I paid Fitz's associates a visit at one of their known watering holes and basically offered myself up to them."

Draco shut his eyes, but that did nothing to stop images of what could have happened to her. "Hermione..."

"It was the only way to goad the DMLE to come here! The one thing I can always count on, like clockwork, is Ron and Harry coming for me. They would never have agreed to do this on my terms."

"I wonder why!" Draco said.

"And they're more than equipped. They just needed to know where to look."

"But none of you know where 'here' is!"

Hermione gave him a cool look. "Oh, ye of little faith." She stood, kicked off her left shoe and put her foot in his lap. "Observe, your birthday present to me from two years ago."

Draco cradled her foot, delicately running his grubby thumb under the arch and up to her ankle. He recognised the platinum anklet she wore, but not the new charm on it. It was a black, heart-shaped pendant.

"What is it?"

"Muggle GPS Tracker, courtesy of Dean Thomas' stepfather, who works at Scotland Yard. Fitz took everything from me that was obviously magical, but the pendant survived the scan."

Draco's fey, silver eyes were intense as he pulled her down into his lap. "I knew I married a genius."

"And you divorced a fool," she said, leaning her cheek into his cold hand.

"No." He shook his head. "You did the right thing when you left me."

She kissed his chin, wincing slightly when his stubble scratched her. "Making the both of us miserable was the right thing?"

"I was the instigator of that misery. If I say the right kind of sorry now, will you have me again?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Is this your third proposal to me, then?"

"I believe it is," he said, a little snootily.

Hermione was thrilled to see him in fine form again. "On the floor of a dirty dungeon, with you half-starved, danger all around and death looming over us?"

"Apparently so. What's your answer?"

She appeared to be considering the question while she played with the buttons on his filthy shirt. "Sure, why not?"

Draco stared at her. "_'Sure, why not?_' That's your 'yes'?

Hermione was grinning. "Yeses are overrated."

"Unlike apologies." He hesitated, looking very serious now. "In all the weeks I've been here, the one thing that kept playing over and over in my mind is that I needed to tell you how fucking sorry I am."

She undid the first two buttons of his shirt and slid her warm hands over his chest. It had been so long. So long since she'd touched him, held him against her in bed, run her hands over the familiar contours of a body she had come to know so well over the course of their tumultuous relationship.

"Fucking sorry, eh? Don't say it, Malfoy. _Show it_."

The look on his face was priceless. He used her own words in reply. "On the floor of a dirty dungeon with me half-starved and danger and death all around us?"

"Don't worry." She pulled him to her. "I promise I'll be quick."

It _was_ quick, in the end. But it wasn't Draco's fault.

The door of the cell blew open.

**

Ron made a disgusted sound. "They're in mortal peril, you said! Merlin knows what could be happening to Hermione, you said! I break the door down not knowing what I'm going to find and they're bloody going at it on the floor!"

Harry stepped through the smoke and dust, waving a hand in front of his face with a grimace. He coughed. "Bit of overkill on that Reducto there, Ron." He eyeballed Draco and Hermione who were standing against the far wall, inside their cell. More accurately, Draco had her protectively pinned between him and the wall, which Harry felt was only right.

"You two alive?" he barked.

"Quite," said the muffled voice of Hermione, who was finally allowed to emerge from behind Draco.

Draco was relieved, but was not one to waste an opportunity to annoy Harry. "Your timing is rubbish Potter. You might have come five minutes later."

"Or you, five minutes earlier, it would seem," said Harry.

"_Terrific_," muttered Ron. "Now I have to wash out my _ears_ along with my eyeballs." He walked off to secure the remainder of the corridor.

Hermione hurried over to Harry, throwing herself into his hug. "Thank you for the rescue."

"Thank you for giving us something to rescue," he replied, gruffly. "Are you really alright?"

"Perfectly alright."

"Good. Please know that if you ever do anything like this again, I'm not speaking to you forever, do you understand? And neither will Ginny."

She took his hand and squeezed it. "I'm sorry. _I had to_."

"I know. You're a ruddy genius." He turned to Draco. "Know that Malfoy. She's brilliant."

Draco nodded. "Known it since second year."

Ron returned, looking slightly harried now. "We really should be going."

Harry shoved Draco out the door first and waited while Hermione hurried to the spot under the window, where she retrieved Draco's parchment.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"The world's best apology," Hermione told him, somewhat cryptically. She hurriedly shoved the rolled up parchment down the front of her shirt for safe-keeping, and joined the men outside the door.

The clock that was on the upper level began to chime and Draco could not help tracking the number of 'dings' as they ran (or in Draco's case, hobbled) down the corridor and headed for the main exit.

_Eight, nine, ten..._

Draco stopped at the opening. An exasperated Ron collided into the back of him. "Malfoy, for the love of-"

"Twelve," said Draco, with smiling finality. "Happy 2010, you lot." He took Hermione's free hand after Harry handed them wands to Dissapparate with. "It seems I'm in need of a new diary."

**


End file.
